it's like catching lightning
by katanafleet
Summary: He ran into the living room. "Swan, what is—" Emma, who was holding Hope on her hip and far above the danger, was pointing to a large spider on the floor. Not just an ordinary large spider, but the kind that made even Killian wince. "—it. Oh."
"Daddy!"

Killian peered out from the kitchen, where he was helping Emma with dinner. "What is it, Hope?"

"Hurry!"

Killian looked at his wife helplessly. It's not that he didn't want to go see what their daughter wanted; it was more that he couldn't. The funny thing about making hamburgers is that it tends to leave raw meat all over one's only hand. Emma nodded and stepped into the living room.

There was a whispered conversation, during which Killian patted out the last hamburger. Hope's voice went high-pitched and excited. A few whispers. Then Emma shrieked. Killian's eyes darted toward the hallway. Emma rarely shrieked in such a terrified way, and usually it meant one of two things.

"Killian, get in here now," she demanded. Killian ran to the sink and scrubbed at his hand uselessly, then grabbed a dishcloth and wiped the rest off. He'd wash it later, after he found out what was making the two people he loved most forget their courage.

He ran into the living room. "Swan, what is—"

Emma, who was holding Hope on her hip and far above the danger, was pointing to a large spider on the floor. Not just an ordinary large spider, but the kind that made even Killian wince.

"—it. Oh."

"Daddy, kill it!"

There were two things that made Emma and Hope squeamish, afraid, or otherwise incapable of acting normally. One of these was broken bones, as they'd discovered first when Killian had broken his ankle on the _Jolly_ one pleasant day and second when Hope had tripped down the stairs and broken her arm in two places. (That had been the worst day of Killian Jones' life.)

The other was spiders.

"Killian, do something now," Emma said. Her voice wasn't so much "I am afraid; please save me my love" as "if you don't do something about this spider now, I'm killing you and then divorcing you and then burning your ship."

"What do I do about it, my love?" he asked, trying to keep sensible in these troubled times.

"I don't care how you do it, Jones. But when your daughter and I return to this room next, I expect to see the spider either dead, dying, or cut into a thousand pieces." To soften her tone, which was rather frightening and just a little bit too sheriff-y, she kissed Killian's cheek as she walked past him and let Hope hug him for a second.

Then they disappeared upstairs, probably to hide comfortably under the sheets of his and Emma's bed.

Captain Hook had a secret.

He was afraid of spiders.

Well, not so much afraid as deathly repulsed. And they occasionally brought flashbacks of a certain crew member on his and Liam's first ship dropping spiders in his bed to see the small boy scream.

However, once he discovered that the love of his life and the smaller love of his life had the same fear, he had attempted to suffocate it in memories of Liam trouncing the sailor and Emma's kisses after he killed another one. This had worked well in the past but—

THIS WAS A BLOODY HUGE SPIDER.

But Killian remembered that his wife and daughter were counting on him to kill the creature. He stared at it for a few moments, considering how to kill it or at least dispose of it. He thought of his options.

(First was his hook. However, that required getting down quite close to the spider and assuming it would stay still for a clobbering with a thin metal object. He mentally scratched that one off the list. Second was the bug killer. A good thought, but it would require leaving the spider to its nefarious deeds alone while he went to the kitchen to find the strange bottle. Third was simply hoping it left and promising away a few years of his life to some god in exchange. Bad idea, Jones.)

The final thought was his boot. Slowly, he reached down, still staring at the spider, and unlaced his shoe. Then he took a deep breath and pounced.

(Emma and Hope couldn't help laughing from their safe place under the blanket. Killian's boot was not a light thing, and it sounded like a gunshot whenever he threw it into the ground after the spider. Emma eventually shivered and pulled Hope closer. Every time the shoe hit the ground it meant that the spider wasn't dead yet.)

He chased the spider throughout the room and into the kitchen and down the hallway. After a while, the leg Henry had viciously and accidentally kicked a soccer ball into began to ache, as well as his head from the sounds of crashing shoe, and his eyes from losing track of the spider. Finally, he slammed the shoe onto the spider and the fight was done.

"Swan, I've killed the beast," he called up.

"Get rid of the corpse!" the young, sweet, innocent voice of his daughter called in response. He heard Emma choke back a laugh as Killian grinned.

He left the shoe on top of the spider after hitting it a few more times, grimacing with each hit. Then Killian limped to the kitchen to find newspaper, reminding himself to tell his wife that their son had probably better sign up for soccer before he graduated from high school. He scraped the spider from both his shoe and the floor, wincing all the while, and then he threw the newspaper outside.

Then he wandered to the couch to wait for Emma and Hope.

They ventured down the stairs slowly, cautiously, Hope clutching Emma's arm in such a way that she could immediately clamber up if needed. Emma merely looked relieved.

His loves settled onto the couch next to him with a sigh of joy. The spider was gone, the hamburgers were still waiting, and Hope could return to her dolls. No sooner had they sat down than his daughter saw the dolls and got back down to comfort them. Emma laid her head on his shoulder for a moment and they watched their not-such-a-baby-anymore comb her fingers through the yarn hair and straighten the dresses.

Emma reached up and gently pulled Killian's jaw so they were eye to eye. She smiled softly, a smile that left Killian slightly dismayed, since she was saying with the knowing eyes, "I know that you don't like spiders, you know", something he hadn't really wanted her to figure out.

He sighed and brushed his fingers along her stomach and side for a second. Then she kissed him quickly before standing and beckoning him back to the kitchen. As Emma walked back into the kitchen, he heard her say, "My hero."

And just like that, Killian was restored. He may have been forced to run around the house and kill a giant spider, but he was still Emma's hero. He kissed the top of Hope's head and rested his forehead against her head for a second. Then he stood and joined his wife in the kitchen.

He found her standing in the middle, her hand pressed to her stomach, staring at a single floor tile. "Emma?" he asked quickly.

"Mr. Jones, grab your daughter and let's get out. We're going to Granny's tonight."

Killian took one look at the floor, grabbed Emma's hand, and ran to the living room to fetch their daughter. Then they left the house.

The spider's angry wife had found the kitchen.


End file.
